American Airlines mechanic pleads guilty to tampering with the aircraft in Miami

According to various reports, Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, a California mechanic who worked for this well-established carrier for more than 30 years has pleaded guilty to sabotaging the aircraft in a deal to avoid a maximum sentence of approximately 20 years in prison.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, 60, had confessed that he used a piece of foam to sabotage the aircraft’s air module system, responsible to make necessary reports regarding speed, pitch, and other important flight data to the pilots. It happened on July 17 flight from Miami bound to Bahaman with 150 passengers aboard the aircraft.

Alani currently resides in California but commuted to Miami International Airport. As being told to the prosecutors, he didn’t want to cause any harm to its passengers when he tampered the said navigation system. He was then asked if he would take his own family on that aircraft without anyone, he declines.

It’s good to know that none of the 150 passengers on the aircraft was injured by his attempted sabotage since the aircraft didn’t even leave the ground.

An error alert appeared as pilots initially powering up the aircraft. In that case, the flight needs to be aborted and the aircraft was taken out of service for routine maintenance. All 150 passengers were transferred to another aircraft.

Alani told the main reason behind his actions. He said that he disabled the system on the said day because he was too upset about how union contract negotiations with American Airlines had stalled. Also, he wanted to make added overtime for the maintenance of the aircraft.

As per the detention hearing last September, federal prosecutors said that Alani has seen to displayed support for ISIS by its statements like wishing Allah would use its divine powers to harm non-Muslims while sharing several ISIS videos on his phone. Alani also told the agents who arrested him that he had a devil side. But he was not condemned with any terrorism-related crimes.

Following Alani’s plea deal, the said carrier issued a statement saying that the company is grateful for the work of the U.S Attorney’s Office, FBI and other officials involved in resolving the mater. It also states that American Airlines fully cooperated from the start until the end of the investigation. Alani then faces up to three years imprisonment and his sentencing is set for March 4.

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